


Life in Disorder

by paradiamond



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Other, Triggers for eating disorders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-21
Updated: 2011-06-21
Packaged: 2017-10-20 14:43:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/213864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paradiamond/pseuds/paradiamond
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Alex had wanted was to be better, to be the best he could possibly be, for once in his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life in Disorder

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fill for 1stclass_kink on lj, for the prompt, Alex/Hank/Sean H/C for eating disorder.

Two more laps. Alex tries to focus his breathing. Two more laps, and then he would stop. He would stop, and he would go inside, and he would find someone and eat something. He smiles slightly, it’s almost too easy to hide the food thing. All Alex has to do is make sure that whenever he does eat, someone sees him do it, and that he never misses a group meal. That way, nobody has a reason to think, ‘you know, Alex never seems to eat very much does he?’ That way, he can get away with eating breakfast with them, and then eating a snack every couple of hours to keep his energy up.

Besides, he isn’t trying to starve himself or anything, he’s just not sure the others would see it that way. He just needs less food to go off of than most people. He’s perfectly aware of what he’s doing, and he’s always careful not to eat too little.

He always eats just enough.

He frowns and runs harder, willing himself to be faster, making sure to really work his muscles this time. No one is going to make Alex better but Alex, and Alex owes it to the others, who so clearly believe in him, to be better. He owes it to himself.

In the last half of what’s supposed to be the last lap Alex is in the process of convincing himself that he should run two more when he hears Sean calling him. He turns in time to see Sean land, albeit ungracefully, a couple dozen feet from him. Sean wobbles for a second before righting himself and jogging over to him, smiling.

“Hey Alex, having a run?” Alex gives him a small smile back. He likes Sean, he's a nice guy, even if he is a bit of an idiot sometimes.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Mind if I join you? I’m supposed to be running like, every day because Hank says that I should be able to fly better if all my muscles are getting worked out, I don’t really get why but, you know.” He shrugs.

Alex snorts, still trying to catch his breath, and trying to hide it. For some reason the idea of seeming weak in front of Sean is extremely unappealing. “Yeah well, if the fur ball says something science related he’s probably right.” Which is one of the most infuriating things about Hank, really.

Sean laughs good naturedly. “Yeah you got that right.” He shifts his weight to his other foot. “So how ‘bout it? I hate running by myself.”

Alex hesitates. He wants to keep going but he knows he probably shouldn’t run more, at least not right now. What he should do is go back inside, eat, and work on his aim and accuracy without the suit. The events of the beach had proved that.

He looks at Sean’s calm, open face. Would saying no look suspicious? He doesn’t want to. “Yeah, sure. Let’s go.” Sean visibly brightens, and that alone makes it worth it.

“Are you sure? How long have you been going?” Now it’s Alex’s turn to hesitate.

“I just started.” Sean nods and slaps him on the back. “Awesome then, lets go.”

The run is hard, and his legs feel like lead the entire time. It’s a good workout though, and Alex can’t deny that he needs all the workouts he can get, so he doesn’t complain even to himself. But he can’t concentrate. He just lied to Sean for no reason. Or rather, he just lied to Sean for no reason other than to hide the fact that he had already been running for over an hour.

He can hardly concentrate for the entire rest of the day. Not even when he goes for his second run.

***

Weight lifting is something Alex enjoys. Not as much as running, but he likes the feel of the burn in his arms. Loves the feeling of accomplishment he gets when he does more than he did the day before.

He’s at about a half hour when he hears the door open. He turns, and it’s Hank. Alex sets the weight down and calls out to him, “Sup Beast?” It was almost time for him to switch arms anyway.

Hank raises an eyebrow and steps into the room, crinkling his nose a bit. Alex smirks. “Not big on weight rooms?”

“No, just not big on weight room smell.” Hank comes to a stop about twenty feet from him, in the middle of the room, which he eyes critically. Alex figures he must not come in here very often, though really it’s not like he needs anything but his mutation to be the strongest guy in the mansion.

Alex shrugs. “What’s up?”

Hank crosses his arms, looking annoyed. “You missed training, and I came to find you.”

Alex had completely forgotten. “Oh, yeah sorry man, I totally forgot.” Training with Hank is something that Alex can, if not enjoy, because it’s so frustrating, then at least recognize the value of. Hank is surprisingly good at keeping him focused with his apparent intense desire to improve his suit. They actually work pretty well together, which still surprises Alex sometimes, considering how badly Alex had treated him before.

He stands up, figuring he could just come back after they get done and finish up with the other arm, and winces involuntarily at the jolt in his shoulder.

Hank’s expression, which had softened a bit at his apology, grows faintly concerned at his reaction. “Are you alright?”

Alex waves him off. “Yeah just over did it with the shoulder work I guess.” He frowns slightly. He hadn’t even noticed he was hurt.

Hank takes a step forward, and reaches for him, but stops. He glances at Alex. “May I?”

Alex, feeling slightly uncomfortable but not wanting to be weird about it, nods. “Yeah sure.” He’s never sure how to act around Hank when they aren’t in training. It’s easy in the bomb shelter or the lab, where they both have specific, defined roles to fall back on, but outside of that Alex never knows how to react. Hank makes him nervous, or something like it.

Hank reaches out and grasps Alex’s arm lightly, prodding and lightly rotating his shoulder. It hurts, but Alex has had far worse.

“How many reps did you do?” Hank sounds slightly disapproving, and Alex really doesn't want to get lectured. He isn’t used to people being concerned for him, it makes him uncomfortable. Especially when it’s Hank.

“I don’t really keep track.” It’s a lie, Alex knows exactly how many reps he did, but now that he knows that it was too much, he just won’t do it again. He doesn’t need Hank thinking that he needs to watch Alex’s weight lifting habits. It might make him pay attention to other parts of his behavior that Alex would rather go unnoticed.

Hank rolls his eyes, but seems mollified. “Well maybe you should, you don’t want to unintentionally hurt yourself.” Alex nods.

Hank, seeming satisfied that Alex hasn’t permanently damaged himself, lets him go with a warning not to strain himself and a suggestion that he holds off on the weights for a few days.

Alex figures that he’ll just do less than he normally does and remember to ice it down after. It’s no big deal.

***

“Happy birthday to Jeeeeeeannnnn! Happy birthday to you!” Alex mouths along with the words, he’s not really big on singing. He spots Sean across the table, smirking at him. He smirks back. Apparently he’s not as good at faking it as he thought.

The birthday girl, Jean...something, (Green? Alex feels like it’s a ‘G’ color, but whatever) is sitting at the head of the table, looking way too happy for a person celebrating her fourteenth birthday with a room full of near-strangers and receiving nothing but a messy, but clearly well meant, cake. But that, Alex supposes, it part of what makes Charles whole school work. The kids are just happy to not have to hide.

He feels heat coming from his left, and turns, already knowing he’ll see Hank, who runs at about a billion degrees just standing around.

“Hey, Hank.” Hank blinks, looking a bit surprised, and Alex realizes that he generally doesn’t call him Hank to his face, just in his own head. He resolves to do so more in the future. They are a team after all.

Hank recovers and nods at him. “Alex.” He shifts awkwardly and Alex smirks. For all his brains, he was still bad at social situations. “How’s the shoulder?”

Alex had forgotten about it. He rolled it experimentally. It twinged, but not horribly. “Pretty much healed.”

“Good, staying off of it?”

No. “Yup.” Hank nods distractedly, and excuses himself, moving over to where Charles is. Alex figures that he’d probably sent him a mental message.

He turns his attention back to festivities, and sees Sean making his way over to him, holding two plates, each with a (way too big, Alex’s mind tells him) piece of cake.

He feels a completely ridiculous jolt of panic, and wills himself to calm down. It’s just cake. He’ll just run a few extra laps tonight. It’ll be fine.

“Hey.” Sean calls out to him, Alex waves him over.

He makes himself smile at Sean as he receives his plate. He can’t remember the last time he had cake. Probably not since he went to prison. Definitely not since he started getting serious about getting in shape.

Sean’s talking, but Alex is only half paying attention. Something about him seeing some funny animal behavior he while flying. Alex tries to be interested, but his mind is going in circles over how to get out of eating the cake. Can he? He doesn’t want to do anything socially unacceptable with food, because that makes people pay attention. He could just say that he doesn't feel well, but he said that last time Sean offered him junk food. Sean might notice a pattern. Alex doesn’t want to have a pattern.

So he just eats it, slowly, so that Sean has no reason to offer to get him more, and nods along with what Sean is saying.

It’s good cake, he thinks, but he can’t appreciate it. He feels like he let himself down. He feels like he should man up and just eat it, but he thinks about the sugar and carbs and fat in it, and he feels sick with himself.

Actually, he realizes, he just feels sick.

He excuses himself as discretely as he can and calmly makes his way to the door. He can feel Sean’s concerned eyes on him the entire way. It makes it worse.

He goes to the bathroom closest to his room, and far enough from the party that hopefully no one will stumble upon him. It’s not far enough away from say, Charles, but Alex figures that if he hasn’t noticed by now, he probably isn’t going to. Besides, he definitely has bigger things to be concerned about.

Alex slumps onto to the floor, next to the toilet. He feels terrible. But, he figures, that’s what happens when you eat stuff like that after months of eating nothing but low fat, low carb, low everything foods.

He sits, resolving himself to feeling awful. He wants to go run, his now default response to any type of stress, but knows if he tries, he’ll be sick.

He wishes he would just hurry up and puke so he could get back to his life.

After a while, he realizes that he could just make himself throw up. It would be seriously easy, and he would probably feel better. He really would just be doing it to make this annoying pain go away. He stares into the water of the toilet, considering. He wonders why he doesn't just do it, and realizes that he isn’t sure he’ll be able to stop doing it once he starts. Alex groans and leans back, into the wall of the stall. Forces himself to admit that the temptation might be too great.

Honestly, he doubts that he'll suddenly become reliant on it. But. There is no way he is becoming bulimic. Ever. Even the simple thought of it is so mortifyingly embarrassing that Alex knows he won’t do it, he’ll tough this out.

The...issues he has now are bad enough, the not eating as much as he should all the time, the working out all the time...the lying. He isn’t about to add making himself throw up every time he eats something he feels like he shouldn’t have, which is rapidly becoming everything he puts in his mouth. He just won’t. It would be too much.

After about twenty minutes of just sitting, fighting with himself and glaring around at everything, he starts to feel better and pushes himself up to stand in front of the mirror over the sink. He splashes some water on his face, looks at himself critically. He looks about the same as he always has, except for the bags under his eyes. He’s pretty much tired all the time recently.

He figures he’s well enough at this point to go back to the party. Or he could give himself another ten minutes or so to make sure he’s really ok, and go running.

He sits down on the toilet seat to wait out the ten.

Five and a half minutes later, someone knocks on the door. Alex frowns. “It’s occupied.”

“Yeah I know, are you ok?” Alex sighs. Of course it’s Sean. Alex frowns, but he’s actually pretty...touched? happy? that he came to check on him.

“Door’s open Sean, and I’m fine. Guess I just ate too fast.” Sean opens the door, steps in, and closes it. Alex raises an eyebrow.

“You only had like, one piece though.” Sean’s frowning, and Alex doesn’t really want him thinking too hard about Alex and eating, so he says, “Yeah, but I ate like, a bunch of chips and stuff before the thing, and was already feeling a little...” He trails off and makes vague gesture that Sean seems to accept as ‘feeling sick’.

“Ok well, I just wanted to check on you, cuz, you know.” He shrugs. Alex shoots him a tight smile. He feels bad about lying, again, but figures he’d feel worse about Sean knowing the truth.

“Thanks man.”

“Want me to stay and hang out?” He sounds almost hopeful. Alex snorts.

“What, not eager to get back to the fourteen year old’s birthday party?” Sean laughs and runs his hand through his hair.

“Yeah, I mean, Jean’s nice and all, but you know.”

“Well then maybe I’m too sick to go anywhere and you’re taking care of me like a good friend. It’s not our fault.”

Sean grins. “Right.”

They end up hanging out in the bathroom for hours, talking and goofing around. It’s nice, Alex thinks, having a friend like this. It almost makes up for the fact that he misses his run that day. He’ll just have to do it twice tomorrow.

***

He’s made it a habit to run with Sean in the afternoons. It’s a good cool down after running by himself.

But on this particular day, the day after the party, or as Alex thinks of it, the day he only ran once, Alex has to admit that he’s gone too far.

He’s not an idiot, he’s knows what he’s doing, and he knows that he’s exercising more than most people do. More than he probably should be exercising. But it’s hard to argue with results. It’s hard to convince himself that he should stop, or a least stop going at this level, when Sean comments on how good he’s looking recently (in a very bro-acceptable, not weird way of course), or when students giggle when he walks past, or when Hank’s eyes follow him on his way out of a room (in a much less bro-acceptable way. Alex isn’t sure how he feels about this yet.)

Besides all that, Alex is feeling really good about himself for the first time in months. Maybe for the first time in years. Because really, it’s not about wanting other people to think he looks good, or looking good at all. It’s about doing something for himself. Making a positive change, and getting control of over at least one part of his life. He’s doing this for himself.

Sure, Alex thinks as he struggles to keep up with Sean- a problem he doesn’t usually have, he’s had issues along the way with it, like the not eating, but he wasn’t going to be that person anymore. The Bathroom Incident as he was calling it in his head, had brought a lot of this to light. He was going to fix himself. Just that morning he had eaten a full breakfast, without anyone even being there. He'd felt sick, but it had felt like progress.

 _Speaking of feeling sick_ , he thinks, and slows down to a jog. He probably shouldn’t have gone straight from weights, to running, to running with Sean. Even for him, even with breakfast, that had been a lot.

Sean noticed after about ten seconds and turned, doubling back to check on him. “Alex! Are you ok?”

Alex nods, “Yeah, sorry I just, have a stitch.” More like his legs are about to fall off. Sean frowns.

“That’s weird right? I mean, you’ve never had one before when we’ve run together. How much did you run before you ran with me?” Alex hadn’t realized that Sean knew he ran without him.

 _Lie_ , he thinks. Again. “Just like, a few laps to warm up.”

Sean hums. “Well, maybe you shouldn’t.” Alex just shrugs. He honestly can’t imagine not doing it anymore.

Sean shifts his weight to his other foot and looks up at the sky. He looks back down at Alex smiling. “Want to stop with this and fly instead?”

Not really, but he probably should. “Uh, you sure that a good idea?”

Sean rolls his eyes. “Oh come on you train too hard, lets have some fun.”

Alex hesitates. He wants to keep running, but he also just promised himself that he would slow down. So he nods, and Sean’s face brightens, and Alex feels like he can do this, he can fix himself.

“I’m just going to run and get my suit.” Sean practically bounces off, irrationally excited to get out of running, which Alex knows he detests.

Later, after they finish flying, which Alex had to admit was seriously fun, he couldn’t appreciate it before, when he was scared he was going to die, Alex waves Sean off to go train. He implies that he’s training with Hank, which isn’t true. He goes to the weight room and does reps until dinner, which he tries to eat, but has trouble with. He spends most of the meal mixing the food together and chopping it up to make it look like it was eaten. It’s not his most successful meal ever.

Hank is giving him weird looks throughout the whole meal, but Alex isn’t really paying that much attention. His mind is turning over and over on the same words, and he’s glad that Charles isn’t there.

‘Whoa man, you're so heavy.’ Sean hadn’t meant anything by it, obviously. But for some reason Alex can’t let it go, no matter how much he wants to.

 _Muscle weighs more than fat_ , he reminds himself, for what feels like the millionth time.

***

That night after dinner, when Alex gets up to leave before desert, claiming fatigue, Hank follows him, which isn’t normal Hank behavior. Alex frowns and pretends not to notice. Maybe Hank just has some important science stuff he has to do in the lab.

He gets about a hallway away from the dining room when Hank calls him.

“Alex.” He stops and turns. Hank is standing about twenty feet behind him, looking concerned, and Alex knows immediately that he does not want to have this conversation.

“Hey man, what’s up?” Hank shifts and takes a couple steps that put them within normal talking distance. Alex resists the urge to back up.

Hank looks down at his feet for a second before looking back up at Alex. He’s clearly nervous. Alex opens his mouth, but Hank cuts him off. “Can we talk?”

Alex can’t think of a non-weird way to say no, so he just nods and follows Hank down the hall. He’s pretty sure he knows what this is about. Sean must have mentioned to Hank that Alex said that he was training with him earlier, and Hank wanted to know why. Alex figures he’ll just say that he said he was training, not necessarily with Hank, which is technically true.

Hank leads him to the lab and opens the door, motions Alex inside. Alex goes, irrationally annoyed at being told what to do, even at this small level. Hank follows him in and closes the door, striding past him to lean against a counter covered with vials and various other sciency tools.

Alex stands with his arms crossed. “So?” Hank just looks at him. Alex considers walking out and dealing with this later, but finally Hank responds.

“I talked to Sean. He said that you almost passed out running today but that you said that you just had a stitch. He also said that when he went to check on you later on, he couldn’t find you, but one of the students told him that they saw you in the weight room.”

It’s not at all what Alex expects. “Uh, so?” Hank gives him a look.

“So, how often do you work out?” Alex is starting to get that creeping panic feeling, and he fights it down.

“I dunno, a lot? I don’t really keep track.” He shrugs, hoping he’s being convincing. He’s sure he can still get out of this.

Hank looks at him sharply. “Really? Like how you don’t keep track of your reps?”

Alex blinks, thrown. He’s starting to feel a bit shaken. Actually, his legs are shaking a bit. He covers for it by walking over to the mostly empty desk to his right and hoisting himself up to sit. Hank’s eyes follow him the entire way, clinical and concerned.

“Look, Alex, I’m a scientist, it’s my job to notice things, and I’ve noticed a few things about you.” That pisses Alex off. A lot.

“Yeah? Like maybe that I don’t want to talk to you about this?” Hank tilts his head to the side. His sizable blue eyebrows furrow.

“Yes, actually I did. You don’t seem to want to talk to anyone about this,” He hesitates, “or about the not eating.” Alex squeezes the desk, feeling the pain in his fingers. It’s grounding.

“I don't know what you're talking about, I eat.”

“Not very much.”

Alex can’t think of a response. He realizes that he has none. Hank continues to look at him. They lapse into silence. Finally, Hank breaks it, hesitantly.

“You know,” He pauses, meets Alex’s eyes. “A lot of times, people with eating disorders feel compelled to-”

Alex jumps off the desk and starts for the door, but Hank moves faster and grabs him arm, effectively stopping him. Alex feels himself get hot.

“Dude. I’m serious. Let go of me.” Hank makes a face but he does it. Alex heads for the door.

He’s about half way through it when Hank calls for him again. He pauses, not turning around. He doesn’t think he can look Hank in the eye.

He hears Hank start to walk forward, towards the door, and he whirls around to face him, afraid that Hank might touch him if his back is turned. Hank stops about ten feet away, frowning.

“Alex. I’m just- you need help ok? You need to talk to someone about this, and it doesn’t have to be me, but it needs to be someone. You need to stop overtraining. You’re starting to hurt yourself with it.”

Alex pauses. He looks at Hank, with all his concern and his advice and his patience. He thinks about staying. He thinks about going to find Sean. He thinks about leaving completely and never coming back.

He just ends up going back to his room.

***

The conversation with Hank leaves Alex unable to sleep. Overtraining, he’d said. Alex has never heard the term before, but it isn’t hard to figure out. Eventually, sometime around midnight, even though he knows he shouldn’t, he gives up and throws on his sweats, figuring he’ll just do a couple of laps around the mansion to burn off the extra energy. And the calories from dinner. Hank’s words haunt him the entire way down the stairs.

He doesn’t see anyone on his way out, and he’s grateful for it. He doesn’t know how he would explain to someone why he needs to do this, especially not to Sean...or Hank. The thought makes him nervous. Does the fact that he feels like he need to hide what he’s doing mean he’s doing something wrong? He feels like he is. Feels like Hank is right.

He’s glad when he can start running, it means he can stop thinking.

He doesn’t know how long he runs, he just goes until he can’t do it anymore, his lungs burning, his stomach turning. He feels like he’s going to be sick.

Five minutes later, he is. Right in the bushes. He groans, wiping his mouth. He feels pathetic, like he lost in a fight with his own body. But he can’t help but think that maybe it’s not such a bad thing that he threw up. Now he doesn’t have to worry about what he ate anymore. The thought almost makes him throw up again, but he stops it, desperate to not go there.

 _So much for progress_ , he thinks.

He sits down on the gravel and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, noticing it shaking. He laughs and puts his head in his hands. An eating disorder, Hank had said. He never thought it would be him. Never intended for it to go this far. All he had wanted was to be better, to be the best he could possibly be, for once in his life.

He pushes himself up. Thinks about running one more lap, but he’s pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to physically make it all the way around this time. So he just goes back inside, feeling miserable.

He isn’t really paying attention, to the point that he almost trips over Sean sitting in the hallway across from his door, looking concerned and a little angry.

‘Oh, shit.’ Alex thinks. Something in Sean’s expression makes him think that he isn’t going to be able to just play this off as dedication this time.

Seam stands up, and for a second Alex thinks that he’s about to get punched, but then Sean hugs him instead. Alex wobbles a bit, and Sean steadies him. He looks Alex dead in the eye, and Alex has to look away. He has the worst headache.

“Come on man.”

Sean takes his hand and leads him into his room. Alex sits down onto his bed and starts taking off his shoes. He can’t- doesn’t want to look at Sean, though he can feel Sean looking at him still.

“I saw you running.” Alex stares at the floor.

“Alex, it’s two in the morning.”

“I couldn’t sleep.” He feels rather than sees Sean sit down next to him.

“Me either. But I just got water and knocked on your door, you ran yourself until you threw up.” Alex closes his eyes, mortified. Sean puts a hand on his shoulder.

Alex turns his head and finds Sean looking right at him, his eyebrows furrowed in concern. “Why’d you knock on my door?”

“I was worried about you.” Alex flushes, but Sean just keeps on. “You seemed weird after flying today, and I...”

“Talked to Hank.” Alex finishes for him.

Sean nods. “I thought that maybe you couldn’t sleep either. Except you weren’t there.” He moves his hand down Alex’s back slowly, probably intending to comfort him, though in reality it just makes his skin crawl, and stops, glancing back at it sharply.

“I can feel all the bones in your back.” Alex jerks and stands up. But it’s too fast, and he sees white spots. He feels himself start to go, feels Sean catch him. He wants to die he’s so embarrassed.

Sean helps him get back on the bed. He might also have helped him lay down and take off his sweats, but he isn’t sure. He’s having trouble concentrating.

Sean says, “I’m going to get Hank.”

Alex really doesn’t want him to, but he’s too tried to do anything about it.

Sean leaves. Alex stares at the ceiling. He blinks, and Hank is there with Sean. They have near identical expressions of concern, which under normal circumstances Alex would have found funny.

They notice him looking, and Hank asks him something, coming to sit next to him on the bed. Alex ignores him. He’s so tried.

He blinks again, and falls asleep.

***

When he wakes up, it’s brighter than it should have been. Which makes Alex think that it’s more than a little past morning. He stares at the wall next to his bed, wonders how long he can reasonably stay in his room before someone comes looking for him. He feels like a coward. Weak. It’s very not Alex.

He sits up, his head pounding. The clock says 1:25, which explains a lot. Alex swings his legs over the side of his bed and looks around for his pants, which he's pretty sure Sean removed for him last night. He tries not to be too mortified about that.

He doesn’t find them, but a preliminary visual sweep of the room reveals Sean sleeping in his desk chair, looking like he had been there all night. Alex feels a strange combination of affection and panic. He can’t deal with this right now. He spots pants, not the ones he was looking for but still, near the dresser, and rises to grab them.

He has to immediately sit back down. He’s seriously dizzy. He puts his head in his hands, trying to center himself. It doesn’t work.

The door opens, and Alex glances up. It’s Hank. Of course it’s Hank, who just won’t leave Alex alone. Alex glares at him. “You ever think about knocking?”

Hank gives him a look and steps inside, closing the door on his way. “I didn’t know if you were awake of not. I thought it would be best if you got to sleep as much as possible.”

“You thought I was asleep and you came into my room anyway?” Hank just sighs and ignores him, walking over to stand in front of him. Alex glares up at him.

“Can I sit?” Alex can’t even believe he has the nerve to ask. “No.” He knows he’s being childish, but he’s just so pissed. He feels like if Hank had just left him alone, he wouldn’t be in this situation. It isn’t true, but that’s how he feels.

Hank doesn’t hold it against him, just passively moves over to the desk. He leans against it, next to Sean, who’s still sleeping. Alex hopes he stays that way.

They sit in awkward silence for an undetermined amount of time. Alex feels the anger slowly draining out of him, and tries to hold onto it. He doesn’t want to feel anything else at the moment.

Eventually he looks up at Hank, who is still looking at him. _Just like Sean_ , Alex thinks. They look at each other for a few more seconds. Alex gestures over to the dresser. “Could you hand me some pants?” Hank furrows his eyebrows, no doubt wondering why Alex can’t get his own pants.

He does it anyway, seeming to want to be agreeable, but he holds them just out of Alex’s reach, so that Alex has to stand to get them, his eyes calculating. Alex colors.

“Can you stand up?” Hank’s voice is soft, probably trying not to wake Sean up.

Alex looks down, then back up. He pretty much figures that lying at this point would be pointless, and possibly dangerous. He shakes his head. “Not earlier.”

“Dizzy?” Hank tosses him the pants, and Alex squirms into them. “Yeah.”

Hank nods. “It’s from lack of food, or rather, lack of energy. You probably would have been ok, in the short term at least, if you hadn’t run again last night, but you overexerted.” Alex nods. Hank went on. “You can replace food with sleep, to a certain extent, which is why you’re so tired. Your body was trying to conserve. Eventually, it would have just shut down.”

Alex sighed. “Hank, I-” He stopped, closed his eyes. His headache was making it hard to talk.

He hears rather than sees Hank move closer, feels him sit on the bed next to him. Never mind that Alex had told him not to. “You should eat something.”

Alex laughs harshly. “Yeah, I know.”

Hank puts a hand on his shoulder, but removes it almost immediately. Alex looks over at him and is struck by how big Hank is compared to him. He almost feels like child.

Hank suddenly shifts and sticks a giant hand into his pocket. “Almost forgot.” He fishes out a white medicine bottle, and holds it out for Alex to take, which he does. He turns it over, looking for a label. “They’re vitamins. You should take one a day. They won’t serve as a food substitute, but...they should help.” He shrugs.

Alex reaches over to set them on his side table. When he turns back, Hank is looking a him again. Hank opens his mouth, but a groan from the general vicinity of the desk cuts him off. They both turn towards the noise, it’s Sean obviously, apparently woken up by their talking. Or by the weird way he was sleeping, Alex thinks, and feels a wave of guilt.

“Did he stay here all night?” He asks Hank, under his breath. Hank nods. “He was worried about you.” He glances over at him. “We both were.” Alex flushes and looks away, back at Sean, who’s blinking around at the room like he doesn’t know where he is.

“Hey man.” Sean looks over at him and smiles, running a hand through his messy hair.

“Alex, man, are you ok?” Alex sighs. “Yeah, Sean, I’m alright.”

Sean stands and stretches before coming over and sitting down on Alex’s other side. “We were seriously worried about you.”

“Yeah, I heard.” He glances over at Hank, but can’t really figure out his expression. He looks back at Sean who’s sitting facing him with one knee tucked underneath him and the other leg dangling.

“No, really.” Sean looks like he did in the jet, all intensity and focus. “You can’t pull this shit anymore. We need you not to be dead.” Alex flinches.

“I’m not going to die Sean-” Hank cuts him off with a growl. It’s not a human sound.

“You could though. You could die from this. You will die, if you keep going on like you have.” Alex doesn’t know how to respond. He looks at Sean, who is increasingly looking like he’s trying to hide being really upset. Alex meets his eyes, and looks away.

“I don’t- I don’t think I know how to stop. I don’t think I know how to be normal anymore.” He feels Hank’s arm come up around him from behind.

Sean takes one of his hands and squeezes it. “That why you have us, Alex.” Then he leans over and kisses him on the cheek like it’s the simplest thing in the world. Alex blinks, shocked. He looks over at Hank, who offers no explanation.

“Whats-”

“We’re going to get through this.” Hank says, and after a moments hesitation, leans over and kisses him on the forehead, clearly nervous. Alex stares, Sean beams at him.

Alex sits between them, feeling confused and overwhelmed. “Guys, I can’t just like, stop. I-” He breaks off, unsure about what he actually wants to say. Sean hums and brushes his hair back, it feels nice.

“We know, Alex. But we’re a team now, yeah? We’ve got to take care of each other. Ok?” Alex doesn’t think most teammates kiss each other, but he’s surprised to find that he doesn’t really mind. This has been a long time coming, he realizes.

Alex looks from Sean to Hank, and nods. “Ok.”

He can promise to try.


End file.
